If you are concerned about design trends, then you must know the two design styles that have been proposed in recent years, new pseudo-materialization and glass pseudo-materialization, and the famous designer Michal Malewicz was the one who first proposed them. He is now is a trend observer in the design circle. Recently he has observed new trends; let’s take a look:
UI is the gateway for communication between digital products and users. The pursuit of UI visual style is mainly due to fierce competition and users’ numbness to more modular interfaces.
At present, the highly materialized pseudo-materialized design style is not only visually too heavy, but the corresponding design and development costs are too high.
Overview
In recent years, from the original flat 2.0, a new Quasi Materialization style has evolved the year before, and a new trend of glass quasi-materialization was explored last year. This can be regarded as a gradual transition from functional minimalism to modernity. Several milestone changes in the design transition.
This way of evolution complements the visual shortcomings of purely functionalist design. It restrains in absorbing the positive impact of simulant elements on the UI, exploring a relatively new and lasting visual style.
This long “Renaissance” has gone through about 7 years. The flat design of iOS 7 is the watershed of comprehensive flatness, the maturity of the new pseudo-materialization in 2020, the emergence of glass-based pseudo-materialization, and the unification of iOS and macOS multi-platform. It is more like a victory of actual texture over a purely functional flat design.
From the root, whether as designers or users, we all hope that digital products are “made”, rather than purely mechanical digital and functional products without soul and temperature. From this perspective, Material Design as the attribute of a digital system, it is far stronger than its texture as a design language itself.
There is nothing wrong with minimalism to a large extent, but relatively speaking, the overall design diversity is gradually decreasing, and users have expectations for the freshness.
The above example for Android seems boring and not important to some people, but ordinary people’s life is never a simple task list on the to-do list. Everyone also hopes that visual design can add a little bit of light to life.
It is precisely this kind of expectations and subtle perceptions that are driving the birth of new styles and trends. Compared with IKEA’s minimalist and pure white home furnishings, the styles with log texture will be more intimate. The leather wallet, the texture of the backpack, the clothes’ texture, and the details with hand-made traces are the keys to adding value. The same is true for UI visual design.
UI Design Trends is “Aurora Wind”
We don’t want it to be visually monotonous for UI design, but how to maintain the flexibility of functions while still having a sense of organicity and texture visually?
Among the recently popular visual styles, I noticed that visual image styles similar to Aurora are gradually emerging, which I call Aurora UI.
When we consider the UI interface functionality, we need to ensure the usability and accessibility of the UI elements. The visual style can only be given with background and auxiliary elements as much as possible.
The determination of the UI functionality is largely derived from the determination of the hierarchy, which also means that the buttons, fields, forms, and labels of the interface itself cannot be changed too much. And this is exactly the basic principle of the Aurora UI style.
Don’t make too many stylized decorations on the core functional UI elements. Instead, make a fuss about the background and decorative elements. This is also the key difference between it and the new pseudo-materialization.
Mixing the creative “Aurora Wind” background with UI components is the best compromise presentation method to ensure functional usability and overall accessibility.
A UI combination with glass pseudo-materialized components and BigSur background, as well as a version with Aurora-style blurred background.
Glass quasi-materialization
When I introduced the “Glass Imitation” style before, I mentioned this visual style that has gradually been widely used on macOS and Windows:
Glass pseudo-materialization is used to varying degrees in mainstream operating systems, and the moisturized objects are silently integrated into different UI components. For example, the Stripe website above uses this style. But to make the other elements in the UI sufficiently readable and recognizable, skills are needed.
However, compared to the glass materialization, Aurora Wind is more suitable for the readability of different UI elements.
How to realize “Aurora Wind”?
It is not difficult to achieve this visual style of UI background, but the key is to control colours’ contrast. For example, the following is based on three different ellipses as the base:
Option 1: Blurred Shape
It is best to use several ellipses of different sizes for the base geometry, blurring them and blending them to create irregular gradients.
Scheme 2: Multiple Gradient Fill
Blend multiple gradients fills together, all from the centre to the edges, and reduce the opacity. Just try to drag the handle more to find the best combination. This method can be combined with the first solution.
Option 3: Blurred Picture
Suppose you have some photos that already have relatively soft colour transitions. In that case, you can achieve the blur effect based on the photos, which can be performed with reference to the effect of glass pseudo-materialization. In the blurring process, the degree of blurring can be raised to the maximum, and the natural effect can be obtained to the greatest extent.
